


Requiem

by HandmaidenOfHorror



Series: Depressoverse [10]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23715424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandmaidenOfHorror/pseuds/HandmaidenOfHorror
Summary: Jason lives while Bruce doesn't. It changes surprisingly little. Alternatively, Jason Todd is not yet Red Hood, but he is on a highway to get there.
Series: Depressoverse [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652953
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2
Collections: Deadly Intent Exchange





	Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> The story features lots and lots of character deaths, as well as canon-typical descriptions of mutilated bodies. I'm very sorry if it's too much, I tried my best!

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Nothing was supposed to end like this. Bruce managed to find them literally last second, not fast enough to get to safety, but fast enough to shield Jason with his own body during the explosion. When Jason regained his consciousness, first thing that came to his mind was the unbearable pain in all parts of his body. Second thing was the glassy gaze of his mother’s eyes, her head torn from her body. Third thing was the weight all over his body, a cold weight of a badly damaged, cold body in tattered clothes still recognizable as _Batman’s_. The body that was _Bruce_.

Jason might have survived the encounter, but his soul died. Not only didn’t he manage to catch the criminal, but his actions led to the deaths of both of his parents. It was too much. He was catatonic for weeks following the event. He didn’t even attend Bruce Wayne’s funeral (turns out the Wayne fortune was enough to cover the obvious – that he was Batman). His physical wounds healed surprisingly quickly, but mental ones remained. Of course Bruce would be happy to die to protect him, but it was Bruce, and what was Jason without Bruce? _Nothing._

(He’s read Bruce’s testament and the letter he wrote to Jason on the day he relieved him of Robin’s duty. It should have been touching, but instead Jason found it insulting. _“Go get therapy”_ , the nerve, as if it was something Jason wasn’t aware of. As if therapy could have healed years of damage. Was it what Bruce thought of him – damaged goods? A second hand boy wonder?)

And then he saw the headlines – Joker’s the new Iranian ambassador! And the sight made Jason finally switch – what Bruce wanted was for Jason to live, but what Jason wanted was make sure that this awful person hurts nobody else. And so he made a plan and executed it. It was easy once you had Batman’s tutelage but none of his ( _flawed and hypocritical_ , thought Jason) morals.

Jason attacked Joker when he was driven to United Nations. He shot the tires of the limousine and swept on the emerging bodyguards from above in full Batman costume, quickly taking care of them (non-lethally) before catching up to Joker. The clown stopped laughing when he saw the batarang with which Jason promptly severed his carotid artery. ‘Batman’ sat on the dying villain until he bled to death, thinking of his mother’s unseeing eyes, of his father’s cold weight, wanting Joker to feel an ounce of his suffering. The shock of the sight preventing the witnesses from taking any action, and then he surrendered himself to the NYCPD.

His public murder of Joker sent shockwaves internationally. Governments from Rabat to Jakarta and from Moscow to Khartoum, in a rare display of solidarity, demanded death penalty for him for killing a diplomat. Human rights activists from across the world wanted him spared due to his young age, recent trauma (the newspapers loved to dissect his life, dwelling on events he would rather forever forget), and the fact that it was soon discovered than Joker was intending to kill everybody in the United Nations building, meaning that Jason had saved countless lives.

Domestically, the biggest shockwave was the fact the his actions indirectly revealed the identity of Batman, from which it was banally easy to realize who were the Batgirl and the original Robin. Worst of all, Alfred, his beloved caretaker, his grandfather, had a heart attack upon seeing the footage of his murder of Joker and passed away in the hospital. This was Jason’s sole regret. He didn’t really care what will happen to him, or any inconveniences to Dick and Barbara (as if the two ever cared for him), if he will be executed (he would likely be the youngest person to be executed in the United States if the Iranians have their way, or maybe we will be executed in Iran, who knows), or ‘just’ spend the rest of his life in high security prison (after his display as a murderous Batman, nobody would risk anything else).

The answer came unexpectedly – with an explosion levelling the prison wall and an army of ninja descending to kill the wardens, policemen and anyone in their way. That broke Jason out of his lethargy. He wanted to help save the people imprisoning him, yet he felt so powerless behind the bars! And then the most beautiful woman he had ever seen appeared before him, strangely out of place among the carnage, and addressed him directly.

“I am Bruce Wayne’s wife and mother of his son. Come with me and I’ll give you the means to kill every criminal in Gotham.”

Everything in Jason from his conscience to common sense shrieked not to trust her, but what could be worse than the fate that was already before him? Jason nodded, and with one elegant cut of a blade the bars gave out, allowing him to step out of his cell into her arms.


End file.
